NIH admits a dozen critically ill despite shutdown

A few desperately ill patients have managed to get into clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health's famed hospital, even though the government's partial shutdown has others being turned away, the agency said Wednesday. Normally, about 200 new patients every week enroll in studies at the NIH's research-only hospital, often referred to as the "house of hope" because so many of those people have failed standard treatments. The shutdown halted most of those new enrollments, sparking heated political debate about the fate of children with cancer as Congress and the White House grappled with how to get the government back to work.